


from the day you arrived

by somerandom



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, M/M, POV Second Person, Reunions, Vignette, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somerandom/pseuds/somerandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after discharge, Abel runs into Cain. While some things change, others will always stay the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from the day you arrived

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this quickly after thinking "HEY WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF CAIN AND ABEL HAD A BAD BREAK-UP THEN RAN INTO EACH OTHER SOMEWHERE RANDOM" because apparently grief and awkwardness are my catnip. Title taken from 'Entombed' by Deftones.

You're browsing through the greeting card section at the convenience store when he calls your name; your _old_ name, the one you haven't heard in years. Still, some part of you must recognize it as yours because you answer to it as easily as the one given to you at birth. 

It takes a second or two before you even realize who he is. He's changed a lot -- is bigger and broader, perhaps, with a couple of extra scars; shorter hair; a tattoo you don't remember.

He stands over you for a few moments, staring, perhaps waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You do remember me, right?" he presses, and even looks a little let down.

There's a brief flicker of resentment. You wonder if he's played this moment out in his head as many ways as you have, and exactly what he'd expected from you.

"Uh, yeah," you mumble, trying to back away and bumping the display behind you. Several bright blue cards proclaiming "Happy 50th!" litter the floor and you hope fervently for the ground to open up and swallow you whole. 

"Cain," you finally acknowledge, folding your arms. You can't bring yourself to pretend to look pleased. You wonder how long it'll take for him to register how unwelcome he is. How long it will take for him to leave.

He flashes that smirk that hasn't changed at all and for a second the memories hit you like a pulse to the chest, make you dizzy, sick. 

"How've you been, anyway?" he wonders, resting his elbow on top of a shelf and leaning there casually, like he isn't nervous at all. "Haven't heard from you in years." He just as casually doesn't mention the fact he'd tried, desperately, to track you down for almost a year after you'd discharged. That you'd ignored him so completely that eventually he'd just given up and retreated to that part of your mind you keep all your worst memories. 

He doesn't mention what happened before that, either. That you'd loved him once and he'd betrayed you, that for months and even years after you'd hated him so intensely that seeing him now is completely and utterly surreal. 

"It's been a while," you agree, because you don't know what else to say. "What have you been doing with yourself?" Immediately you regret even asking, because every moment you stand here it gets worse, and really, if you'd had the sense to pretend not to know him and just awkwardly excused yourself, you might have avoided the worst of this entirely. 

"I'm still, you know..." He clears his throat. "Still with the Alliance. Still Fighting. Navigator's pretty shit, but the money's decent and I get enough time off. You know how it is. What about you?" He looks you up and down and takes in your clean, ironed shirt; your pressed pants; the little gold name badge engraved with your birth name. His mouth twitches but he doesn't comment on it.

"I work for my father's office now," you tell him, and decide to leave it at that. There isn't any point drawing it out by giving him additional information. He doesn't care what you do -- how could he? --and if you stand here much longer, the small talk will eventually run out and you'll be forced to say something real, something neither of you want to hear. 

"Well, it was good seeing you," you lie with a clipped smile, and attempt to duck around him, to flee. You hadn't even managed to pick a card out before he'd cornered you, but pleasing your mother can wait. The most important thing you can do right now is get away from him as quickly as you can. 

"Wait up a minute." He grabs your elbow, and suddenly you're back on the _Sleipnir_ and he's all around you; the best and worst thing to ever happen to you; all you know and everything that matters. A series of memories flicker behind your eyes and you need to sit down.

You try to pull your arm away; you don't want him touching you. He lets you go, but you stay rooted to the spot anyway, just like you always did whenever he gave you an out, let slip some tiny detail that made it obvious he was lying to you, using you -- whenever he gave you _anything_ you might have used to leave him. But you'd always ignored anything that didn't match up to who you wanted him to be. You always stayed. 

"Do you want to get a drink with me?"

You can't look him in the face. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Abel, I want to talk. About before. About..." He shifts uncomfortably, and you realize he's been acting from the moment he saw you; that he's nervous too. "About everything that went down between us; there's a lot you don't know. There's stuff I never got to say."

"About what?"

"Come on, Abel, you know what."

"That was a long time ago, and there isn't any point. It's in the past."

"It's not in my past."

You regret every miniscule decision that lead up to this moment: you being here in time to run into him. You wish, desperately, you could make him stay locked up in that part of you you rarely ever have to look at. 

"You don't get to decide that," you tell him after a while, and it's like another person talking, another person's feet that walk away from him. Because there's an undeniable part of you that wants to stay with him, listen to what he has to say.

"Abel, wait. Please." He was never so polite. 

You pause but don't turn around, and he presses something into your hand, doesn't say another word. 

You only unscrunch the small piece of paper -- one half of a wedding invitation, by the looks of it -- once you've left the store; when you're safe in your car, doors locked, and there's no chance that he can get to you. 

It's his phone number, and he's signed it with another name. 


End file.
